It isn’t as if receiving an e-mail notification of postal mail that’s going to be delivered within hours is particularly valuable. If the information were that time-sensitive, why not receive the actual original item via e-mail to begin with? That would have saved the sender 49 cents on the front end as well.

So the notion that this service would somehow stem the tide of mass migration to e-mail communications seems pretty far-fetched.

And here’s another thing: The USPS is offering the service free of charge – so it isn’t even going to reap any monetary income to recoup the cost of running the program.

That doesn’t seem to make very good business sense for an organization that’s already flooded with red ink.

Actually, I can think of one constituency that might benefit from Informed Delivery – rural residents who aren’t on regular delivery routes and who must travel a distance to pick up their mail at a post office. For those customers, I can see how they might choose to forgo a trip to town if the day’s mail isn’t anything to write home about — if you’ll pardon the expression.

But what portion of the population is made up of people like that? I’m not sure, but it’s likely far fewer than 5%.

And because the USPS is a quasi-governmental entity, it’s compelled to offer the same services to everyone. So even the notion of offering Informed Delivery as “niche product” to just certain people isn’t relevant.

I guess the USPS deserves fair dues just for trying to come up with new ways to be relevant in the changing communications world. But it’s very difficult to come up with anything worthwhile when the entire foundation of the USPS’s mission has so been eroded over the past generation.

The U.S. Postal Service has just implemented a price adjustment on first class letter mail – the first rate increase in quite a few years. Some other pricing adjustments have been implemented as well, but on the whole they are modest.

Hopefully the rate increases won’t throw water on the good news that the USPS experienced over the holiday season. According to a Rasmussen Reports consumer survey of ~1,000 American adults age 18 and over conducted at the end of December, Americans used the USPS more in the most recent holiday than in the 2015 season.

The public also continues to give the USPS higher marks than its major competitors – FedEx and UPS – on the way it handles their packages.

For the record, ~21% of the respondents surveyed by Rasmussen reported that they used the U.S. Postal Service more this holiday season than they have in previous years, while ~18% reported they used it less. The remaining ~61% kept their USPS usage at around the same level of activity.

On the commercial side, for many businesses who do not have the kind of high volume shipping needs to qualify for special pricing from FedEx or UPS, the USPS also appears to be a far more lucrative choice from a price-to-value relationship.

In mid-2015, FitSmallBusiness.com undertook apple-to-apples comparisons of the three big package delivery firms, and found some startling differences. For example, to ship a 3-lb. package overnight-delivery from New York City to Los Angeles, using FedEx would set the sender back $83. UPS was even worse, at $84.

The USPS price? Just $24.99.

Comparing short-haul rates as well as heavier 10-lb. packages found similar major discrepancies — all in favor of using the U.S. Postal Service. On top of that, the USPS provides free packaging materials, complimentary pick-up service, free insurance and tracking — not to mention flat-rate boxes for packages that weigh up to 70 lbs.

Sealing the deal further, while FedEx’s 50,000+ and UPS’s 63,000+ locations worldwide are certainly nice to rely on, the number of USPS locations dwarfs those figures by a country mile. Those myriad USPS locations also mean that packages can be shipped to P.O. boxes in addition to physical addresses – something that’s out of the reach of either FedEx or UPS.

People love to beat up on the United States Postal Service. But say what you will about the USPS, its problems and its financial challenges, they’re still a major-league bargain for many consumers and businesses.

Considering the many dire predictions about the perils of the out-of-date business model of the United States Postal Service, one might surmise that its very future is in doubt.

But then we read the following news about the upcoming holiday mail season:

15 billion+ pieces of mail are expected to be processed by the USPS this holiday season.

That represents an increase of ~10.5% compared to last year.

Of the 15 billion items processed, more than 500 million will be packages.

There’s a new benefit being offered to USPS customers, too. Ahead of the holiday season, the USPS is now offering real-time delivery notification. People who register will receive real-time e-mail alerts when delivery scans are made by postal workers.

That new function may well be why the new USPS slogan has been unveiled as “One more reason this is our season.”

Normally, all of the additional volume would be cause for celebration – tapping unused capacity while growing revenues during this busy time of year.

But here’s the rub: In order to handle the added volume, the USPS needs to hire ~30,000 temporary workers.

This could mean that substantially all of the added revenues are immediately sucked out of the USPS’s coffers in order to pay for the added labor resources.

But the fact that “letters are going away” has been stated by a spokesperson for the United States Postal Service speaks volumes.

The comment came after a not-for-profit interest group calling itself the “Taxpayers Protection Alliance” released a video that admonishes the USPS to “stick to delivering our letters.”

In the cartoon video, a girl is mailing a holiday card to her grandmother while complaining that it’s getting harder and harder to send First Class mail.

Referring to the package delivery and grocery delivery services that the USPS now offers, the cartoon character pleads for the USPS “stop cutting mail services in favor of these other costly things and stick to what we really need them to do: deliver our letters.”

The Postal Service’s response can be summed up in two words: “Dream on.”

In fact, here’s what a USPS spokesperson stated to Target Marketing magazine about single-piece First Class mail, which includes personal correspondence and bill payments:

“[It] historically has funded the organization, since we do not receive tax dollars. Package volume is growing exponentially … The mail mix is changing and the Postal Service welcomes that change.”

Indeed, First Class mail volume — and particularly single-piece First Class mail — has been declining rapidly, as can be seen in the USPS’s annual volume figures shown below:

By comparison, package delivery has grown by nearly 20% over the past five years.

Target Marketing and others have done a bit of digging to learn more about the “Taxpayers Protection Alliance” … and they’ve discovered that the group is particularly perturbed about the USPS getting into the grocery products delivery business.

“Expanding services into the private market is not only wrong because it undercuts private competitors,” the TPA organization’s president David Williams complains, “but because it is coming at the expense of its government-granted monopoly – mail delivery.”

All of which makes it intriguing to speculate who is actually behind the “Taxpayers Protection Alliance” and what particular agenda they may have. Hint: private companies that offer grocery delivery services, perhaps?

But the bigger news is this: The USPS is no longer even pretending to claim that First Class mail is a central part of its business model looking to the future. And that’s a huge change from only a couple of years ago.

The U.S. Postal Service, hemorrhaging red ink all over the place, has finally decided to jettison Saturday mail delivery.

This decision was taken after years of (very public) hand-wringing and amidst dire predictions of public outrage if the trigger was actually pulled on eliminating Saturday delivery.

Yet, once the decision was finally announced, public response was … near silence. It was a total shrug.

[Politicians, take note: This may also turn out to be the public’s reaction to the sequester cuts kicking in — breathless predictions to the contrary aside.]

Of course, we all know the USPS hasn’t been able to catch a break in recent times. As mail volumes continue to slump, the postal service finds itself attempting to spread its fixed and operating costs over a steadily smaller share of mail volume.

According to the USPS’s own figures, there’s been a ~33% decline in catalogs mailed in just the past four years. First class mailed hasn’t fared much better, decreasing by one-fourth over the past decade.

At worst, the situation is a recipe for complete failure … at best, the USPS will just continue to lurch from one mini-crisis to another.

Forget trying to figure out mail delivery practices that will work in the 21st Century. According to the USPS’s corporate licensing manager, Steven Mills, “This agreement will put the Postal Service on the cutting edge of functional fashion!”

By “cutting edge,” Mills is apparently referring to the fact that the new clothing line will incorporate wearable electronics technology to make the items “smart.”

Isaac Crawford, CEO of Wahconah, reports that “the products will build on the rich American history of this iconic brand, creating specialized apparel for consumers, at affordable prices, delivering something new and exciting that retailers can offer their customers.”

Is anyone jumping up and down with excitement yet?

Tellingly, none of the Rain Heat & Snow apparel will be available at post office locations — only at department stores and apparel shops.

I guess it would be rather strange to encounter mannequins and display racks amongst the shipping containers, change-of-address forms and passport applications at your local post office branch.

As much as many people would like this new venture to be a success, I can’t visualize this endeavor causing anything more than a minor blip on an otherwise steady downward trajectory for the postal service.

Russel Wright American Modern dinnerware: Water pitchers from outer space.The U.S. Postal Service has just issued its newest series of commemorative stamps, and it’s a marvelous set. Instead of honoring yet another crop of political leaders, sports figures or performing arts stars, these postage stamps commemorate 12 American pioneers of industrial design.

In part a reaction against the delicate fussiness of the beaux arts and art nouveau styles, these visionaries sought simplicity in form, celebrating the “utilitarian” aspects of the products they designed while eschewing any purely decorative elements.

From the clock radios of Norman Bel Geddes to the rotary telephone of Henry Dreyfuss, these designs placed “function” front and center. And they were indeed eyebrow-raising – in some cases shocking – to American consumers of the 1940s and 1950s.

But unlike the often ugly, relentlessly boring steel-and-glass boxes that came to symbolize modern architectural style, the items these industrial designers created possessed a style and elegance all their own – and many went on to become icons of design in their respective product categories.

In my youth, our household was one of many that owned a set of American Modern dinnerware, designed by Russel Wright and manufactured by Steubenville Pottery. These dishes were the epitome of “functional simplicity” – used and abused in kitchens and dining rooms during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

And yet, despite all of their simplicity, they had a style that was so distinct, no one who lived with them could ever forget them. “Vegetable bowls from outer space,” a friend of mine remarked once.

But Russel Wright and his fellow designers were doing far more than just paring down to the essentials; they aimed to simplify daily life itself. As a parallel to designing tableware, furniture and decorative objects, Russel Wright and his wife, Mary Wright, published a book titled The Guide to Easier Living.

Aiming to sweep away the last vestiges of the “old order,” when the well-heeled and bourgeois alike relied on “the help” to carry out elaborate dinner parties and other social functions, this book was a veritable how-to guide for the modern 1950s family.

How to organize and decorate the home … how to go about daily living … how to entertain without all of the fussy trappings: This and more were spelled out in suggestions and step-by-step instructions.

Originally published in 1950, the book was an instant success. Amazingly, it would be re-released in 2003 in its original form – without any editorial updates or adjustments – its content remaining surprisingly up-to-date.

The same timeless quality characterizes the work of the other 11 industrial designers featured in the USPS commemorative postage stamp series as well. Time and time again, people have returned to the work of these designers for inspiration.

With all of the horrid financial news coming out of the United States Postal Service in recent months and years, we’ve been waiting to see what sort of congressional legislation would be proposed to alleviate its problems.

The wait is now over, with the announcement of a legislative proposal called the Postal Operations Sustainment & Transformation Act of 2010. (P.O.S.T. – get it?)

This legislation attempts to fix the USPS’s precarious financial condition with a bevy of provisions such as easing employee pension and retiree health costs, making it easier for the USPS to close redundant or underperforming branch offices and, most dramatically, eliminating Saturday mail delivery altogether.

It’s no wonder the proposed legislation seeks to cut back on operating costs, because the volume of mail the USPS processes has dropped by ~20% just since 2006. And the prediction is for a further decline of ~20 billion pieces of mail that will be handled in the coming decade.

Sen. Thomas Carper, who introduced the bill, had this to say about the proposed legislation: “… If we act quickly, we can turn things around by passing this necessary bill that would give the Postal Service the room it needs to manage itself …”

That sounds nice and tidy. But does it really solve the USPS’s financial and structural problems?

If enacted, the new provisions in this legislation are expected to save the Postal Service somewhere north of $3 billion per year. But only a couple days following news of the legislative bill comes word that the USPS lost $1.6 billion in the month of August alone.

In fact, for the first 11 months of its fiscal year, the Postal Service’s losses have totaled nearly $8 billion. USPS losses are significantly higher than last year at this time (~$6.3 billion by comparison) – and that’s even while experiencing an increase in mail volume of ~1.8% year over year.

In this context, it seems pretty evident that the pending legislation will not come close to remedying the USPS’s financial situation – even as it enables the most sweeping cuts in operating activities that have ever been seen. Unfortunately, a classic case of “too little, too late.”

The Postal Service’s own Office of Inspector General has released a report claiming that the USPS could be financially sustainable at the lower mail volume levels projected … if it could raise prices above the inflation rate. But such an action could tip the whole enterprise into a “death spiral” where the price hikes drive away customers. A reminder to everyone involved: Mailing service is no longer a monopoly in this country.